Like No Tomorrow
by Roxxi May
Summary: Epilogue to The Boy In the Striped Pajamas. Gretel sits in her room, missing her brother, then tries to figure out what might have happened to Bruno that caused his disappearance, and discovers more than she may want to know. Oneshot.


_A/N: Just thought I'd try some fanfic for my new favorite book/movie duo since there is none, at least not that I know of. _

_In the book, no one knows what happens to Bruno. In the movie, however, it seems they do figure out what happened. So this is a fic __for the book__, considering that's what a lot of people know it by._

_PS: MAJOR SPOILERS!! MAJOR!! DON'T READ THIS IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE BOOK AND/OR SEEN THE MOVIE!!_

_Disclaimer: I don't own TBITSP. Although I wish I could have long straight hair like Gretel in the movie…that would be nice…_

* * *

What could've happened to him? My brother. It seems as though he just…vanished off the planet, leaving his clothes behind near the fence at the concentration camp.

Bruno was always the naïve one. Always. He never had any idea what was going on, and I feel so guilty now because now I realize: he wasn't stupid, or an idiot, or any other rude thing I've ever called him, but he was simply just innocent. Incredulous to the terrible, terrible things that were going on around him.

I remember seeing his pretty blue eyes fill over with tears when Lieutenant Kotler whisked Pavel away and started beating on him. It was a horrible sight for me, and I even know what was happening, why we were so cruel to Pavel, but I can't imagine how horrid and disturbing it must've been for poor Bruno; he didn't have a single clue.

And I remember the red tint crossing like a strolling old fellow across his cheeks when he told me about his imaginary friend. How he seemed to have thought up a whole life story for this figure of his mind. I thought it was a bit suspicious, and why he was telling _me_, of all people, because he _knew _it was going to burst out laughing at him. And he seemed a bit defensive when I'd asked into further detail. It seemed as though he and this imaginary being weren't supposed to be friends; a forbidden alliance, like Romeo and Juliet only with two friends instead of lovers.

Since we've been back in Berlin, I can't stand to do anything besides sit up here and wonder, and miss, and want to bring this investigation into my own hands and just find out what happened to my baby brother. It's even more boring here than at Out-With, because--

"Gretel?" a small childish voice calls softly from behind me. I gasp like no tomorrow and whirl around, ready to take him in my arms and apologize for everything and never _ever _let him out of my embrace, but then I see…

He's not there. Only emptiness. No neatly parted black hair, no shining blue eyes, no pale chubby cheeks, no nothing. I'm the only entity that resides here in this room right now. And for some reason, this makes me cry like no tomorrow. I quickly grab my pillow off of my bed, bury my face into it and use it to muffle my wails, to absorb my tears as they fall. I cry out Bruno's name over and over again, repeating it, letting my sobs chop each cry into a million separate pieces, so each letter sound of his name gets drawled out like stretching a piece of cotton, and it takes me a few seconds to finish each cry.

Out-With. Out-With, and his _imaginary friend_. Both of those play a role in his disappearance I know. The "farmers" as he called it, but actually were Jewish prisoners. The hole in the fence just big enough for a tiny boy like him to fit through, definitely had something to do with it.

Then, abruptly, I stop crying, and a strange, sudden realization comes to me.

He was really interested in those farmers' "striped pajamas" which were really the prisoners' only clothes.

But of course.

Surely one of the guards would have noticed a naked German boy, the son of their Commandant, running around in their concentration camp. Surely there was something obviously wrong with that, and so therefore why did no one send him back to the other side? Why did he vanish?

I don't even think Bruno was stupid or insane enough to go running around naked inside Out-With anyway. He would've wanted to look like everyone else.

He would've wanted the striped pajamas.

So what if he somehow--we don't need a reason yet, this is just an inference--got a hold of those pajamas, changed, and got…Oh, dear God…mixed up with a bunch of Jews and never got a chance to get out…

What if he was still there and alive? Living the life of an unfortunate Jew? But no. Father and many other soldiers had searched the whole area of the camp numerous times, and there was not one sign of Bruno, anywhere, not one single little trace. No one recognized his name or the pictures that were shown to them.

"Oh, Bruno…" I mumble under my breath, beginning to weep again, "Why must you be so confusing? What in the world happened to you?"

But what if he did get mixed up with a bunch of Jews? Another thought, more like an epiphany vision this time, instead of a theory, whether given to me by the Grace of God or by the spirit of Bruno himself, I had this vision.

Bruno, in the prisoners' pajamas, being swept away in a gigantic crowd of marching Jewish men along with another small boy that shouldn't be there be in the crowd, either.

His imaginary friend.

They were caught up in the center of the crowd being forcefully led along by horrendous and merciless soldiers. The disturbed, frightened look on either boys face… Oh, no, no, no. Not that. Please, God, not that…

But my pleas are ineffective, and my vision continues on, the images torturing me beyond sickness. The crowd of hundreds of Jews plus my little brother are ushered into a big dim room and ordered to remove their clothes. All of it. They all remove their pajamas, some solemnly, some panicky, and just two of them (Bruno and his "imaginary friend") exchange innocent confused glances. Bruno has no idea; other than being a bit confused, he is perfectly calm. He assumes it has to do with getting out of the rain…

The room tips on me. A voice echoes in my head. "They sure do smell when they burn, don't they?" Lieutenant Kotler mumbled to me one day when the menacing black smoke came tumbling out of the chimneys.

Back in my vision, the two boys and massive number of men are crammed tightly into a much smaller room. Bruno looks around nervously, then--to my surprise--grabs the other boy's hand in his own.

"You're my best friend for life, Shmuel." he says, his light little voice shaking for some reason.

Shmuel beings to reply, "And you--" But then all of a sudden, the lights flick out into complete blackness, chaos erupts and the sounds of the screams and frantic prayers are deafening, and then…

All is gone.

Frantic, ashamed, sick, guilty, disturbed, horrified, and petrified-- I get up and then run through the house in no particular direction, screaming like mad. Oh, the pain there must've been…the pain…poor Bruno…

I stop abruptly, in the first floor hallway, running smack into Maria. We both tumble to the floor with a cry. I continue sobbing like no tomorrow, crying out Bruno's name over and over in choppy misfortunate screams again, just like before when I thought I heard his voice. Maria collects me in her arms, rocking me back and forth, forgetting about all of the times I mistreated her.

"Ssh, Gretel dear…it's okay…ssh."

"No--It's--Not…" I cry in between broken sobs. "Bruno--he--with--the Jews--burning--" I cling onto Maria, our admittedly pretty overpaid maid, and continue on with my story in a terrible sob-word-sob-word pattern. When I am finished, she just looks at me with disbelief, coming to the epiphany, too, that yes: it's plausible; that could've happened; that just might be what happened to her employer's only son.

"Oh, Gretel, how did you…how did you know that?"

"I don't know! I don't know! I put two and two together, and it all just makes sense, and--"

I let go of Maria, she lets go of me. I slowly, solemnly walk back up to my bedroom, feeling as thought I'm walking to the beat of my own funeral march. I sit numbly on my bed, perfectly still only my body is trembling like mad. The tears come again, more silently this time, and I curl up on my bed and cry for the next few hours.

But this time I cry not only for my brother, my poor baby brother Bruno, but also I cry for every single boy, man, girl, or woman that had ever experienced such a terrible fate at Out-With camp.

---

_Gretel never informed either of her parents about her discovery, and every night prayed to God for all of the victims of Out-With._


End file.
